


Vir Tanadhal

by girlandherbooks (ayizan)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 22:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2668562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayizan/pseuds/girlandherbooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short work about Alessa Lavellan, reluctant Inquisitor. Early story spoilers for the Lavellan clan. This is a bit sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vir Tanadhal

It was a dream. This time she recognized it. She watched as the halla grazed in the makeshift pen her people built. She was standing on a familiar wooded hill, a warm wind blowing through the trees.

“My people are gone. Scattered.” _Dead_.

Her advisors had given her the news from the Free Marches that morning. Lavellan was destroyed. Her clan, her people. But this was a dream and she wouldn’t cry.

“I am sorry, Alessa.” Solas said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She did not pull away.

She had left them, only a short time ago, on the Keeper’s command. Vir Assan, the Keeper reminded her. One task, one purpose - to learn and report from the Conclave. How the human’s religious leader would act, how it would affect clan Lavellan. It had all gone wrong. Everyone at the Conclave had died, except for her. And since that moment her life had not been her own. Vir Bor'Assan, she had bent to the needs of the people of Thedas, though she wondered if they knew how unprepared, how unexceptional, she was. And Vir Adahlen, strength together, she had collected what people she could to the cause she knew was righteous, even if she was not truly the herald of Andraste, a human woman’s god. But she had not gathered her own people.

“Can you show them to me?” Alessa gestured at the empty camp before her, the aravel pennants waving, the dirt pit fire with ashes but no flame. The sounds were missing most of all; the laughter of the children, playing seeking games underfoot, the drone of the Keeper, explaining something important to her First. The hunters returning with the night’s meal, voices raised in song. She should have been with them. She could have protected them.

“I cannot.” Solas said with regret. “They are not here anymore. And truly, we are not here either.”

“I know.” It was a dream. _But I miss them_. “I should have brought them to Skyhold. They would have been safe here.” Even saying it she knew it was untrue and Solas did not try to comfort her with a lie.

The stone buildings did not bother her too much anymore. She had spent enough time in human cities over the years to overcome the fear of indoors like so many of her fellow elves. It was one of the reasons she had been chosen for the task. Lavellan would have been swallowed up in Skyhold. They would never have fit in. Alessa did not permit any abuses to elves who came to the keep, and this was one of the only perks of the position she had taken. Humans complained about elves climbing the keep's trees, or hiding in the bushes, more odd for the fact that _some_ elves did not. And of course it was only those marked with vallaslin, the Dalish, who listened to the trees and followed where the wind blew. Those who stayed at Skyhold too long would learn the silence of stone and lose hold on the whispers of nature. As Alessa had learned all to well. She had not wanted to subject her clan to the same and now they would not even have the chance.

When she woke, alone in the cool pre-dawn, she went to the garden and wept.


End file.
